I recently finished reading Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago. When I was about halfway through, I told a friend that Solzhenitsyn’s descriptions of the Gulag’s forced labor camps served as a thorough indictment of the Soviet regime and its communist ideology. 582 more words

There are a lot of terms we have for people who harbor prejudice against others. Racist. Misogynist. Antisemite. &c. I think most of these terms are overused, because our culture confuses self-righteous name-calling with “advocacy.” But they can still be useful words. 445 more words

We are obsessed with what is “normal.” We hear people saying not to “normalize” Donald Trump’s behavior toward women, or condemning our culture’s “heteronormativity” (i.e. the assumption that opposite-sex attraction is the norm, with same-sex attraction being anomalous). 674 more words

As a general rule, you should avoid throwing around words that you can’t define in a coherent fashion. For example, you shouldn’t call Ann Coulter a fascist unless you actually know what “fascist” means. 278 more words